Strategy Lab
The Strategy Lab publishes original analysis on growth strategy, M&A, operating group playbooks, and the questions that matter most to CEOs and investors in software and services businesses.
The Essential Strategist closes the loop — from procurement to media spend.
PE operating groups audit everything — suppliers, facilities, headcount, procurement. Then they leave $500K to $2M per year on the table and call it marketing. This is the missing chapter in the operating group playbook.
Marketing and media spend at software and technology companies typically runs 8 to 15 percent of revenue. It is large, growing, and almost entirely unaudited by anyone with an actual interest in efficiency. The agency manages the spend. The agency reports on the spend. The agency is compensated as a percentage of the spend. No one in that arrangement has an economic incentive to find waste.
Read the full analysis →PE Operating Groups
Procurement, IT, headcount, pricing — every major execution discipline has been systematized. One cost line running 8–15% of revenue has never been independently reviewed. The logic for fixing it is identical to the logic that fixed everything else.
Read →In a crisis, marketing spend is the first cost line pointed at and the last one anyone can explain. Cut blind or cut smart — the answer depends on data that no one in the current arrangement has an interest in producing.
Read →The Essential Strategist Series
Every dollar recovered in procurement is worth five dollars in revenue. The Rule of 5 applies uniformly — and most companies systematically underinvest in it while chasing top-line growth. The essential strategist knows the difference.
Read →The companies that win in M&A build their deal pipelines before they need to acquire. Corporate development is a competitive weapon — not a reactive capability. Here is how to build it.
Read →The ratio is universally quoted and frequently wrong. Optimistic churn assumptions, incomplete CAC calculations, and platform-reported attribution inflate it reliably. What to use instead — and when the ratio still matters.
Read →Enterprise customers are worth five to ten times more than SMB despite longer sales cycles. The approach, the mindset, and the organizational changes required to win — and compound — within large accounts.
Read →Big data is not a technology project. It is a management discipline. Every decision a manager makes is a data decision — good or bad. How to build data literacy at every level, and avoid the trap of metrics theater.
Read →The model is always wrong. Paradoxically, the errors contribute directly to its value. Why the process of building a model — forcing analytic thinking, limiting uncertainty, surfacing 'gotchas' — is worth more than the output.
Read →The situation assessment is the first of five critical steps in any good strategic plan. What makes the difference between a useful one and a data dump — the key is what you leave out, not what you include.
Read →Overestimating market share opportunities is a classic strategic challenge. Five questions every growth plan must answer honestly: total market size, share distribution, buying frequency, satisfaction rates, and realistic win rate.
Read →All businesses start with 100% concentration across salesforce, customer, key resources, and profitability. With growth comes diversification — but concentration lurks in unexpected places and drives significant valuation discounts.
Read →Two profitable family businesses, both unable to scale beyond principal-driven sales. Neither could extend their success to a broader sales organization. Breaking the cycle requires transitioning from products to results.
Read →Group think drives models to parrot base-case assumptions. Three steps to stress-test a model or agreement so it flexes in a manner consistent with actual objectives — and reveals assumptions that won't survive contact with reality.
Read →A three-stage framework for companies that need to take a position: Assess, Address, Aspire. Developed for CEOs struggling to build a case for action in a world where the planning process itself can become the obstacle to planning.
Read →Selling value — to customers, shareholders, or financing sources — is a skill that can be taught and needs to be reinforced. Companies that sell value outside their comfort zone need outside help. Here is why, and what it requires.
Read →How competitive intelligence, market modeling, and scenario planning change when you have access to real behavioral data — and how to incorporate it into a strategic planning process that still produces decisions.
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The vocabulary of strategy is used loosely and often wrong. A working glossary for practitioners — from competitive moat to value chain to strategic intent — with the distinctions that actually matter in practice.
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A structured approach to building and managing an M&A target pipeline — target identification, initial outreach, relationship management, and valuation frameworks — before the pressure of an active process begins.
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A defense of the strategist function in the era of operational excellence and growth hacking. Why companies that cut strategy to fund execution systematically underperform — and what the data shows.
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The first conversation about valuation sets the frame for everything that follows. How to approach preliminary valuation discussions — what to reveal, what to defer, and how to keep the process competitive without losing it.
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